Tanya Huff - Keeper's Chronicles 1 - Summon the Keeper

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2024-12-02 0 0 572.39KB 218 页 5.9玖币
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When the storm broke, rain pounding down in great sheets out of a black and
unforgiving sky, Claire Hansen had to admit she wasn't surprised; it had been that
kind of evening. Although her ticket took her to Colburg, three stops farther along the
line, she'd stepped off the train and into the Kingston station certain that she'd found
the source of the summons. It was the last thing she'd been certain of all day.
By the time it started to rain, her feet hurt, her luggage had about pulled her
arms from their sockets, her traveling companion was sulking, and she was more than
ready to pack it in. She'd search again in the morning, after a good night's sleep.
Unfortunately, it wasn't going to be that easy.
A Great Lakes Hydroecology convention had filled two of the downtown
hotels, the third didn't allow pets, and the fourth was hosting the Beer Can Collectors
of America, South Eastern Ontario Division. Claire had professed indignant disbelief
about the latter until the desk clerk had pointed out the sign in the lobby welcoming
the collectors to Kingston.
Some people have too much spare time, she thought as she shifted her suitcase
into her left hand, the lighter, wicker cat carrier into her right, and headed back out
into the night. Way too much spare time.
Pulling her coat collar out from under the weight of her backpack and
hunkering down into its dubious shelter, she followed her feet along King Street
toward the university, where a vague memory suggested there were guest houses and
B&Bs hollowed out of the huge old mansions along the lake. Logically, she should
have caught a cab out to the parade of hotels and budget motels lining Highway 2
between Kingston and Cataraqui, but, as logical solutions were rare in her line of
work, Claire kept walking.
Thunder cracked, lightning lit up the sky, and it started to rain harder. Down
the center of the street, where the reaching leaves of the huge, old trees didn't quite
touch, grape-sized drops of water hit the pavement so hard they bounced. On the
sidewalk, under the trees, it was…
A gust of wind tipped branches almost vertical, dumping a stream of icy water
off the canopy and straight down the back of Claire's neck.
… not significantly drier.
There were times when profanity offered the only satisfactory response.
Denied that outlet, Claire gritted her teeth and continued walking through
increasingly deeper puddles toward City Park. Surely there'd be some kind of shelter
near such a prominent tourist area even though September had emptied it of fairs and
festivals. Tired, wet, and just generally cranky, she'd settle for anything that involved
a roof and a bed.
At the corner of Lower Union and King, the lightning flashed again, throwing
trees and houses into sharp-edged relief. On the third house up from the corner, a
signboard affixed to a wrought iron fence reflected the light with such intensity, it left
afterimages on the inside of Claire's lids.
"Shall we check it out?" She had to yell to make herself heard over the storm.
There was no answer from the cat carrier, but then she hadn't actually
expected one.
In this, one of the oldest parts of the city, the houses were three- and four-
story, red-brick Victorians. Too large to remain single-family dwellings in a time of
rising energy prices, most had been hacked up into flats. The first two houses up from
the corner were of this type. The third, past a narrow driveway, was larger still.
Squinting in the dark, water pouring off her hair and into her eyes, Claire
struggled to make out the words on the sign. She was fairly certain there were words;
there didn't seem to be much point in a sign if there weren't.
"Never any lightning around when it's needed…"
On cue, the lightning provided every fleck of peeling paint with its own
shadow. At the accompanying double crack of thunder, Claire dropped her suitcase
and clutched at the fence. She let go a moment later when it occurred to her that
holding an iron rod, even a rusty one, wasn't exactly smart under the circumstances.
White-and-yellow spots dancing across her vision, the faint fizz of an
electrical discharge bouncing about between her ears, she stumbled toward the front
door. During the brief time she'd been able to read the sign, she'd seen the words "uest
House" and, right now, that was good enough for her.
The nine stairs were uneven and slippery, threatening to toss her, suitcase, cat
carrier, backpack, and all, down into the black depths of the area in front of the house.
When she slid into the railing and it bowed dangerously, she refused to consider it an
omen. From the unsheltered porch, she could see neither knocker nor bell but,
considering the night and the weather, that meant very little. There could have been a
plaque warning travelers to abandon hope all ye who enter here, and she wouldn't
have seen it-or paid any attention to it if it meant getting out of the storm. A light
shone dimly through the transom. Holding her suitcase against the bricks with her
knee, she tried the door.
It was unlocked.
Another time, she might have appreciated the drama of the moment more and
pushed the heavy door open slowly, the sound of shrieking hinges accompanied by
ominous music. As it was, she shoved it again, threw herself and her baggage inside,
and kicked it closed.
At first, the silence came as a welcome relief from the storm, but after a
moment of it settling around her, thick and cloying, Claire found she needed to fill it.
She felt as though she were being covered in the cheap syrup left on the tables at
family restaurants.
"Hello? Is anybody here?"
Although her voice had never been described as either timid or tentative, it
made less than no impact on the silence. Lacking anywhere more constructive to go,
the words bounced painfully around inside her head, birthing a sudden, throbbing
headache.
Carefully setting the cat carrier down beyond the small lake she'd created on
the scuffed hardwood floor, she turned to face the counter that divided the entry into a
lobby and what looked like a small office-although the light was so bad, she couldn't
be sure. On the counter, a brass bell waited in solitary, tarnished splendor.
Feeling somewhat like Alice in Wonderland, Claire pushed her streaming hair
back off her face and smacked the plunger down into the bell.
The old man appeared behind the counter so suddenly that she recoiled a step,
half expecting an accompanying puff of smoke-which would have been less
disturbing than the more mundane explanation of him watching her from a dark
corner of the office.
"What," he demanded, "do you want?"
"What do I want?"
"I asked you first."
Which was true enough. "I'd like a room for the night."
His eyes narrowed suspiciously. "That all?"
"What else is there?"
"Breakfast."
Claire had never been challenged to breakfast before. "If it's included,
breakfast is fine." Another time, she might have managed a more spirited response.
Then she remembered. "Do you take pets?"
"I do not! That's a filthy lie! You've been talking to Mrs. Abrams next door in
number thirty-five, haven't you? Bloody cow. Lets her great, hairy baby crap all over
the drive."
Beginning to shiver under the weight of her wet clothing, it took Claire a
moment to work out just where the conversation had departed from the expected text.
"I meant, do you mind pets staying in the hotel?"
The old man snorted. "Then you should say what you mean."
Something in his face seemed suddenly familiar, but the shadows cast by the
single bulb hanging high overhead defeated Claire's attempt to bring his features into
better focus. Her left eyelid began to twitch in time with the pounding in her skull.
"Do I know you?"
"You do not."
He was telling the truth although something around the edges of his voice
suggested it wasn't the entire truth. Before she could press the matter, he snarled, "If
you don't want the room, I suggest you move on. I don't intend standing around here
all night."
The thought of going back out into the storm wiped everything else from her
head. "I want the room."
He dragged an old, green, leather-bound book out from under the counter and
banged it down in front of her. Slapping it open to a blank page, he shoved a pen in
her general direction. "Sign here."
She'd barely finished the final "n," her sleeve dragging a damp line across the
yellowing paper, when he plucked the pen from her hand and replaced it with a key
on a pink plastic fob.
"Room one. Top of the stairs to your right."
"Do I owe you anything in ad…" Claire let the last word trail off. The old man
had vanished as suddenly as he'd appeared. "Guess not."
Picking up her luggage, she started up the stairs, trusting to instinct for her
footing since the light was so bad she couldn't quite see the floor a little over five feet
away. Room one matched its key; essentially modern-if modern could be said to start
around the late fifties-and unremarkable. The carpet and curtains were dark blue, the
bedspread and the upholstery light blue. The walls were off-white, the furniture dark
and utilitarian. The bathroom held a sink, a toilet, and a tub/shower combination and
had the catch-in-the-throat smell of institutional cleansers.
Given the innkeeper, it was much better than Claire had expected. She set the
wicker carrier on the dresser, unbuckled the leather straps, and lifted off the top. After
a moment, a disgruntled black-and-white cat deigned to emerge and inspect the room.
As the storm howled impotently about outside the window, Claire shrugged
out of her coat, wrapped her hair in a towel and collapsed onto the bed trying,
unsuccessfully, to ignore the drum solo going on between her ears.
"Well, Austin, do the accommodations meet with your approval?" she asked
as she heard him pad disdainfully from the bathroom. "Not that it matters; this is the
best we can do for tonight."
The cat jumped up beside her. "That's too bad because-and I realize I risk
sounding clichéd in saying it-I've got a bad feeling about this."
Claire managed to crack both eyelids open about a millimeter. No one had
ever been able to determine if cats were actually clairvoyant or merely obnoxious
little know-it-alls. "A bad feeling about what?"
"You know: this." He paused to rub a damp paw over his whiskers. "Aren't
you getting anything at all?"
She let her eyes close again. "I seem to be getting MTV on one of my fillings.
It's part of the Stomp tour." Flinching at a particularly robust bit of metaphor, she
sighed. "I'm so thrilled."
A furry, ten-pound weight sat down on her chest. "I'm serious, Claire."
"The summons isn't any more urgent than it was this morning, if that's what
you're asking." One-handed, she unbuttoned her jeans, pushing the cat back onto the
bed with the other. "Nothing else is getting through this headache except a low-grade
buzz." "You should check it out."
"Check what out?" When Austin refused to answer, Claire decided she'd won,
tossed off her clothes, and got into a pair of cream-colored silk pajamas-standard
operating procedure suggested night clothes suitable for the six o'clock news, just in
case. Tucked under the covers, the cat curled up on the other pillow, she realized
why the old man had looked so familiar. He looked like a gnome. And not one of
those friendly garden gnomes either.
Rumplestiltskin she thought, and went to sleep smiling.
"This is weird, my shoes are still wet."
Austin glared at her from the litter box. "If you don't mind!"
"Sorry." Claire poured liquid out of the toe of one canvas sneaker, hung them
back over the shower curtain rod by their tied laces, then made a hasty retreat from
the bathroom. "It's not that I expected them to be dry," she continued, dropping onto
the edge of the bed, "but I was hoping they'd be wearably damp."
It was starting out to be a six of one, half a dozen of the other kind of a day.
On the one hand, it was still raining and her shoes were still too wet to wear. On the
other hand, her sleep had been undisturbed by signs or portents, her headache was
gone, and the low-grade buzz had completely disappeared. Even Austin had woken up
in a good mood, or as good a mood as he could manage before noon.
Flopping back against a pile of bedclothes, she listened past the sound of
feline excavation to the hotel's ambient noise, and frowned. "It's quiet."
'Too quiet?" Austin asked, coming out of the bathroom.
"The summons has stopped."
Sitting back on his haunches, the cat stared up at her. "What do you mean,
stopped?"
"I mean it's absent, not present, missing, not there." Surging to her feet, she
began to pace. "Gone."
"But it was there when you went to sleep?"
"Yes."
"So between ten-thirteen last night and eight-oh-one this morning, you
stopped being needed?"
"Yes."
Austin shrugged. "The site probably closed on its own."
Claire stopped pacing and folded her arms. "That never happens."
"Got a better explanation?" the cat asked smugly.
"Well, no. But even if it has closed, I'd be summoned somewhere else." For
the first time in ten years, she wasn't either dealing with a site or traveling to one
where she was needed. "I feel as though I've been cast aside like an old shoe, drifting
aimlessly…"
"Mixing metaphors," the cat interrupted, jumping up on the bed. "That's
better; while there's nothing wrong with your knees, they're not exactly expressive
conversational participants. Maybe," he continued, "you're not needed because good
has dominated and evil is no longer considered a possibility."
They locked eyes for a moment, then simultaneously snickered.
"But seriously, Austin, what am I supposed to do?"
"We're only a few hours from home. Why don't you visit your parents?"
"My parents?"
"You remember; male, female, conception, birth…"
Actually, she did remember, she just tried not to think about it much. "Are you
suggesting we need to take a vacation?"
"Right at the moment, I'm suggesting we need to eat breakfast."
The carpet on the stairs had seen better days; the edges still had a faint
memory of the pattern but the center had been worn to a uniform, threadbare gray.
Claire hadn't been exactly impressed the night before, and in daylight the guest house
had a distinctly shabby look.
Not a place to make an extended stay, she thought as she twisted the pommel
back onto the end of the banister.
"I think we should spend the day looking around," she said, following the cat
downstairs. "Even if the site's closed up, it wouldn't hurt to check out the area."
"Whatever. After we eat."
Searching for a cup of coffee, if not the promised breakfast, Claire followed
her nose down the hall to the back of the first floor. With any luck, that obnoxious
little gnome doesn't also do the cooking.
The dining room stretched across the end of the building and held a number of
small tables surrounded by stainless steel and Naugahyde chairs-it had obviously been
renovated at about the same time as her room. Outside curtainless windows, devoid of
even a memory of moldings, a steady rain slanted down from a slate-gray sky,
puddling beneath an ancient and immaculate white truck parked against the back
fence. Fortunately, before she could get really depressed about either the weather or
the decor, the unmistakable scent of Colombian double roast drew her around a corner
to a small open kitchen. The stainless steel, restaurant-style appliances were separated
from the actual eating area by a Formica counter, its surface scrubbed and rescrubbed
to a pale gray.
Standing at the refrigerator was a dark-haired young man in his late teens or
early twenties, wearing a chefs apron over faded jeans and a T-shirt. Although he
wore a pair of wire frame glasses, a certain breadth of shoulder and narrowness of hip
suggested to Claire that he wasn't the bookish type. The muscles of his back made
interesting ripples in the brilliant white cotton of the T-shirt and when she lowered
her gaze, she discovered, after a moment, that he ironed his jeans.
Austin leaped silently up onto the counter, glanced from the cook to Claire,
and snorted, "You might want to breathe."
Claire grabbed the cat and dropped him onto the floor as the object of the
observation closed the refrigerator door and turned.
"Good morning," he said. It sounded as though he actually meant it.
Distracted by teeth as white as his shin and a pair of blue eyes surrounded by a
thick fringe of dark lashes, not to mention the musical, near Irish lilt of a
Newfoundland accent, Claire took a moment to respond. "Good grief. I mean, good
morning."
It wasn't only his appearance that had thrown her. In spite of his age, or rather
lack of it, this was the most grounded person she'd ever met. First impressions
suggested he'd never push a door marked pull, he'd arrive on time for appointments,
摘要：

Whenthestormbroke,rainpoundingdowningreatsheetsoutofablackandunforgivingsky,ClaireHansenhadtoadmitshewasn'tsurprised;ithadbeenthatkindofevening.AlthoughhertickettookhertoColburg,threestopsfartheralongtheline,she'dsteppedoffthetrainandintotheKingstonstationcertainthatshe'dfoundthesourceofthesummons.I...

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